Saying Hello

[MelissaAnne]

Hi all -

I just joined The Fedora Lounge last night and already jumped in to post. Hope you don't mind.

I'm from Nebraska - Lincoln, to be exact - and grew up on a Nebraska farm. Have my BA and MA in history, even though I took awhile to go to grad school (just graduated in Dec. '04). Had to take time out to get married and have my daughter.

Although I've always loved classic movies, it wasn't until I went to grad school that I began to be fascinated with the 1940's and WWII. I did my master's thesis on the German POW camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and how the intellectual diversion program affected the POWs. I'm also a novelist and my next series will be WWII suspense/thriller.

Looking forward to getting to know you all!

Melissa

 

["Doc" Devereux]

Hello Melissa, and welcome! Hope you enjoy your time here.

 

[MelissaAnne]

Thanks, Doc! It's great to be around other like-minded individuals.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Welcome to the site!
I am looking forward to your posts.
Enjoy your stay. This is a great place with a wealth of information.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I did my master's thesis on the German POW camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and how the intellectual diversion program affected the POWs.

Gosh! Please tell us about this!

 

[MelissaAnne]

Hi Marc -

Just saw your message - I will definitely elaborate more on this tomorrow! Time for sleep!

 

[mysterygal]

Welcome to the lounge Melissa!

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Welcome aboard!

And ya know, even the non-like-minded people are fun, too. lol

 

[KAT]

Gosh! Please tell us about this!

welcome melissa
the FL is a fun place

yeah the POW stories must be interesting...im just glad my grandfather wasnt one in the USA:eusa_doh:

 

[Johnnysan]

I married a "Melissa Ann..."

...so, I'm especially partial to your name! Welcome to the Lounge!!

 

[Pilgrim]

Welcome, Melissa. I'll echo Tony's comment: "And ya know, even the non-like-minded people are fun, too."

We have some spirited debates here, but I've been impressed with the tone and demeanor of the lounge members.

Looking forward to hearing more from you!

 

[MelissaAnne]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

 

[MelissaAnne]

The Re-Education Program

Marc asked me to elaborate on my thesis, so I shall try and do so without becoming too wordy. (I'm pulling a lot of this from my thesis so that I get it right!)

Even though many German POWs who were held in America were not Nazis, there were a number of them who were. Unfortunately, they were quite instrumental in the camps. Camp spokesman were often Nazis and the U.S. camp commanders didn't seem to mind too much because these men maintained an orderly camp.

Many incidents of Nazism continued to plague the camps. At Fort Robinson, one of the prisoners said the following at dinner one night: "If we win the war, I will never return to Germany, if we lose, it I will deliver the Nazis to the knife."

The War Department recognized that they needed to do something about this problem and thus came up with the re-education program.

The program’s goal would be such that “prisoners of war might be exposed to the facts of American history, the workings of a democracy and the contributions made to America by peoples of all national origins." - General George C. Marshall

But the program had to be kept secret. One of the rules of the Geneva Convention prohibited captors from subjecting enemy prisoners to propaganda. Also, if Germany discovered the project, Allied prisoners could be subject to retaliation.

But how did one get around the Geneva Convention itself? Article 17 contained the necessary loophole. The article stated, “So far as possible, belligerents shall encourage intellectual diversions and sports organized by prisoners of war.”

Since intellectual diversion was encouraged, it remained up to the War Department to choose the proper subjects and media. Representatives of the War Department and the State Department concluded that “if selected media for intellectual diversion were made available in the camps, the curiosity of the prisoners concerning the United States and its institutions would provide the means for their reeducation.”

Thus began the Intellectual Diversion Program. And I'll end this post with what the Provost Marshal General's Office outlined as the core principles behind the program:

“The prisoners would be given facts, objectively presented but so selected and assembled as to correct misinformation and prejudices surviving Nazi conditioning. The facts, rather than being forced upon them, would be made available through such media as literature, motion pictures, newspapers, music, art, and educational courses. Two types of facts were needed: those which would convince them of the impracticality and viciousness of the Nazi position. If a large variety of facts could be presented convincingly, perhaps the German prisoners of war might understand and believe historical and ethical truth as generally conceived by Western civilization, might come to respect the American people and their ideological values, and upon repatriation to Germany might form the nucleus of a new German ideology which will reject militarism and totalitarian controls and will advocate a democratic system of government.”

 

[Brad Bowers]

Fascinating subject. So, was the Intellectual Diversion Program viewed as a success by the War Department? Did any of the POWs later become American citizens?

I'd like to hear more about your novels. I think at least half of the folks here at the Lounge are aspiring novelists, myself included.

Brad

 

[MelissaAnne]

Hi Brad -

Y'know, the funny thing about the Intellectual Diversion Program is that they never really did any follow-up studies on how successful it was. That is truly a shame because they poured so much money and effort into it, you'd think they'd want to know. They did do a survey, but as far as following up on the men when they returned to Germany...well, that didn't happen.

On the survey, the results were as follows:

-Approximately 74 percent of the German prisoners of war who were interned in the country left with an appreciation of the value of democracy and a friendly attitude towards their captors;
- About 33 percent of these prisoners were definitely anti-Nazi and pro-democratic;
-About 10 percent were still militantly Nazi
-Approximately 15 percent, while not strictly Nazi, still were not favorably disposed toward America or democracy

On the surface, this looks very positive. But when you look at the results of a survey done before the reeducation program was implemented, it tells a different story. Arnold Krammer (author of the definitive book on this subject, Nazis Prisoners of War in America said, "Based on the government’s loose assumption that prior to the inception of the reeducation effort, 13 percent of the prisoners were devout Nazis, 12 percent anti-Nazi, and 74 percent neutral, it appears that the program was effective in changing 23 percent to a strong anti-Nazi position and 61 percent from a neutral to a positive appreciation of democracy. Nazi strength was reduced, however, by only three percent."